I've never been to it, but people in San Antonio seem to love it, and it's great to see some more variety in restaurants in the Uptown area. I'm really curious to know what their long term plans are, though, both the restaurant and also the building. They have said this is a 'two year pop up' restaurant, so, in two years time, assuming things are going well, I'd imagine they would try and find a more permanent spot which would free up this plot of land once again.

Naga Thai Kitchen & Bar Permanently closed in Victory Park! What happened? One of my favorite places to eat dinner before going to a Mav's or Stars game! It was not the best Thai food in town, but decent enough to keep me going there. Why is it that Victory Parks is not opening new restaurants and retail fast enough or is able to keep the old ones open after their re branding?

That's why they closed. It's not the neighborhood. There are too many very good Thai options in central Dallas to just be mediocre and survive. In fact, Thai is one of the ethnic cuisines central Dallas does best. Si Lom, Mint, Malai Kitchen, Sakhuu, Saibadee, Crushcraft, Bangkok City, Pakpao, all within a short distance of Naga and all fantastic. Naga had bad reviews, and even though they're my neighbor, I tried to order from them online, got a confirmation, and then 45 MINUTES LATER got a random order cancellation for no reason. Hopefully something great will go into that space because it's going to be a hot location with all the new residential towers opening up within walking distance, all at once.

Kelley USA wrote:I think once Mesero and the new Tristan Simon restaurant opens it'll help change the perception of the area. Not to mention the movie theatre! I think VP is 6-12 months away from really changing.

Yep, I agree. The movie theater, grocery store, and there are three new bar/restaurants coming from some very successful teams. It's going to be very different in about a years time.

I haven't read the case, but that is interesting. Typically, under Texas law, the landlord puts lock on the door pretty quickly after failure to pay rent and eviction procedures are fairly simple. Hard to imagine a million dollars in damages... unless of course, the landlord let them operate for an exceedingly long time without paying.

muncien wrote:I haven't read the case, but that is interesting. Typically, under Texas law, the landlord puts lock on the door pretty quickly after failure to pay rent and eviction procedures are fairly simple. Hard to imagine a million dollars in damages... unless of course, the landlord let them operate for an exceedingly long time without paying.

Most commercial leases allow for acceleration of rents, i.e., the landlord can sue for past due rent and the balance of future rents, hence why the claimed amount can be pretty large even for small tenants. This is not unlike how a lender can sue for past due mortgage payments and the unpaid balance; in both situations the tenant or borrower have agreed to make payments over time. Also, it is possible that the tenant is current on rent payments but has breached the lease in some other manner - for example, failure to operate is an important aspect in a retail lease where percentage rent and tenant mix are critical - and such breach may also allow the landlord to accelerate rents.

I am not an expert on Texas landlord-tenant law, but courts in most states will cap the judgment awarded to a landlord by making market-based assumptions (with experts' testimony) on how long it will take to re-let the property, market rents and costs to procure the new tenant (construction allowances, commissions, etc.). Whether the lease obligates the landlord to re-let the premises or not, and whether Texas law requires the landlord to do so will both have bearing on the adjudication and judgment awarded to the landlord.

Usually I agree with the Dallas Observer, but the original review that may have led to the closure of Hot Joy seemed like quite the hit job. The biggest flaw, according to my read of the Observer review, is that "white people owning a pan-asian restaurant is racist!". I'm sure there's more to it than that, but the review seemed overly harsh for a concept that openly boasted that it is a temporary "pop up", where tweaks are to be expected.

Shame, because I was looking forward to trying one of their Tiki drinks.

I tried it once. The food was mediocre and the service was downright bad. The decor was cool though. I had high hopes as well when it first opened, but for those who never made it I promise you didn’t miss much.

“We have the building for two years and then it’s going to be torn down,” he says. “The space has so much flexibility. It used to be a Texas Land & Cattle.” The restaurant group plans on turning the space into another pop-up, but in the meantime will be using it to host private holiday events in.

flyswatter wrote:I hope something goes in there. If not, we have two large empty buildings that will be sitting for awhile at one of, if not the busiest, cross streets in Uptown.

Yeah, this particular stretch is definitely an eye-sore. The former Hot Joy space, the Shell gas station, the CVS, and the empty former Minyard's space.

At the same time, I feel that Uptown is plenty successful enough where it will continue to be a huge hit, even with dead spaces such as these. Even if we have to wait a couple years for these lots to be re-developed, I'm okay with it, as long as the development is worth the wait. If Uptown was still new and coming into its own and these buildings would either make or break the area, I'd be more concerned, but Uptown will continue to fill up, these buildings will continue to become more valuable, meaning people can justify building something better when the time is right.

The Village Burger Bar will soon have a second Uptown location. They are taking the ground floor space at the McKinney and St. Paul corner of the 1845 Woodall Rodgers Freeway building. I am not sure if this building is still called Advancial Tower now or not.

They will open in late Dec. or early Jan. and VBB will keep their West Village location.

Redblock wrote:The Village Burger Bar will soon have a second Uptown location. They are taking the ground floor space at the McKinney and St. Paul corner of the 1845 Woodall Rodgers Freeway building. I am not sure if this building is still called Advancial Tower now or not.

They will open in late Dec. or early Jan. and VBB will keep their West Village location.

Makes sense now that I realize Village Burger Bar is a Firebird brand. Firebird Restaurant Group purchased the Advancial tower almost 2 years ago and I assumed they would open a Snuffer's or some new concept there.

Reading that article makes me want to puke and I go to clubs and bars every weekend. I like what they did to the building though. At least if it fails it could be adapted to a nice restaurant/bar. Although I would gladly trade this for "The Den". Keeping in mind I do not frequent uptown bars.

A former steakhouse spot in Uptown Dallas will soon be home to a glitzy new restaurant and lounge serving Italian American food. Called Pazzo Uptown, it's going into 2680 Cedar Springs Rd., in the former Place at Perry's location, and it aims to be open before the holidays.

Pazzo will be two concepts in one.

"It will be an American-Italian restaurant with a lounge attached to it, with high-energy nightlife," says spokesperson Jill Berger. "On one side, it'll be a restaurant serving casual Italian food. On the other side, there'll be a lounge. With a lounge and a restaurant under one roof, it's the best of both worlds."

Businesses in this particular area always seem to struggle, so it'll be interesting to see how this new restaurant will fare. I think the buildings across the street (wells fargo, Texas De Brazil, Self Storage) need to be redeveloped and interact much better with the Katy Trail.

So I didnt see this myself, but a friend told me that the Uptown Urban Market in the Villa Rosa appeared to be cleared out, doors locked,, and a sign on the door for failure to pay... rent? im guessing. Bummer!

PonyUp13 wrote:Completely anecdotally, but my friends that live in along the Cedar Springs corridor (Villa Rosa, Trianon, etc) don’t walk hardly anywhere compared to friends along the McKinney corrido. So it doesn’t surprise me the Villa Rosa restaurants struggle.

This doesn't surprise me. I used to walk past this area a lot, and it was always pretty dead, despite the high number of apartments in the area. I'm surprised there isn't more being done to encourage some of the Katy Trail foot traffic to spill over into Uptown.

uptown74 wrote:So I didnt see this myself, but a friend told me that the Uptown Urban Market in the Villa Rosa appeared to be cleared out, doors locked,, and a sign on the door for failure to pay... rent? im guessing. Bummer!

I'm not surprised. Every time I went, the place wasn't that busy, and I'm pretty sure at least one of the food stands closed down a few months ago (maybe it was Fireside pies?). I would like to see another food hall open in the area, but it needs to be more central, and much bigger with more tenants. It would be cool to see both the Den and maybe even Jake's Hamburger's redeveloped into a food hall with the surface parking lot used for food trucks and outdoor seating.

The Dallas City Council agreed Wednesday to sell a Routh Street dead-end to the Katy Trail Ice House for almost a quarter of a million dollars — over the objections of the council member who represents that part of town.

The Ice House agreed to pay the city $225,358 for the small stretch of Routh that runs into the trail off Woodrow Avenue, where the red Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad car's parked. The zoning consultants from Dallas firm Masterplan, representing the popular hangout's ownership, said the Ice House wants to merge the two pieces of properties it owns along the trail that are divided by the dead-end. Dallas Cothrum, Masterplan's CEO, said the Ice House needs to expand its kitchen.

I really feel this particular 'dead-end' has been highly under-utilized for quite sometime. This is probably the liveliest part of the Katy Trail, but nothing is being done to connect the trail to Routh street. There's no reason why the walkers/bikers on the trail can't start to spillover more into Uptown down Routh street all the way to McKinney Ave).

Anyway, I believe the owners of Katy Trail own the land that previously housed Company Cafe, so now it seems they have acquired the missing piece between the two pieces of land. I really hope they have something big in mind that really helps bring some traffic off of the trail and into Uptown and is more than just a bar expansion.

I can see the Katy Trail Icehouse people expanding their kitchen into the space currently occupied by their parking lot/valet area, but hopefully that doesn't mean they're going to knock down the building next door, turning all that space along the Katy Trail towards Texas de Brazil into a big parking lot.

eburress wrote:I can see the Katy Trail Icehouse people expanding their kitchen into the space currently occupied by their parking lot/valet area, but hopefully that doesn't mean they're going to knock down the building next door, turning all that space along the Katy Trail towards Texas de Brazil into a big parking lot.

I certainly hope not. Maybe my expectations are too high, but I think it would be cool to get rid of the surface lots for both the Ice House and former Company Cafe and fill the space with food trucks/stalls and lots of outdoor seating and maybe even put a few vendors inside the old Company Cafe building. It would be a nice bonus if it were all one big venue so you could drink beer while eating at one of these food trucks too, and perhaps a rooftop seating area could be added to the company cafe building. I know this is a bit ambitious, but this area could have a lot going for it (more than it already does) if the owners were to think beyond just trying to be a bar along a trail.

Is there some sort of parking minimum that is required by these establishments? If not, I don't really see the need for either parking lot. I really doubt the added parking space is really improving business all that much.

EDIT: I feel like there is a reason why they've let Company Cafe sit idle for so long, and it's because they needed this piece of land and they have something bigger in mind. If they just wanted to expand the Icehouse kitchen and turn Company Cafe into parking, I feel like they would have done that a couple years ago. This is all just speculation though.

Keep mind there is a lot of pushback on places like the Ice House opening letting alone expanding. Many residents think these places ruin the tranquility of the trail and prefer a secluded trail away from bars and activity. I went to Atlanta last year and tried one of their trails and it has a wonderful balance of tranquil trail and lively bars. I imagine if they propose expanding across and if they need additional permits through the council we will hear about it from certain groups.

I will miss this bar it still was one of the most approachable bars on McKinney Ave. Everything else was so douche oriented this bar at least had some room to breath and had the local feel.

I don't think the land would be big enough for a bigger development like Idle Rich is doing. It seems the only thing that could happen is another owner opening something else here or a teardown and another similarly sized structure with a better interior layout. I expect it will sell to an operator for a new restaurant with Valet just like Uptown Dallas Inc would prefer.

I don't think Mack owned the building. DCAD has the real estate owner listed as M.M. Whitewing Holdings and a Business Personal Property account is shown for McKinney Avenue Tavern.

The building is historic and the size of the lot makes any substantial redevelopment difficult. Hopefully a new establishment can make a go of it.

I know this was an early Dixie House restaurant (Gene Street/Phil Cobb) but not sure if it was the first one. It was proposed as the first carbarn for McKinney Avenue Transit Authority. It was built as a pie bakery and at one time was a speakeasy/nightclub that got shot up with a tommy gun. Until they put in the new corrugated tin ceiling, you could still see bullet holes in original the pressed tin ceiling.